


down to a science

by saturdaynightapocalypse



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Future Fic, Good Alpha Laura Hale, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mates Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Multi, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24905959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturdaynightapocalypse/pseuds/saturdaynightapocalypse
Summary: sheriff john stilinski has died under mysterious circumstances, and as the Claw of the hale pack, there is no way in hell that stiles is going to let this slide.future!fic where there's a strict pack hierarchy, stiles and derek are mates and have been for a while, and the hale pack is not taking any shit from anyone. feat. bamf stiles, soft derek, laura really just trying her best, and a bunch of ocs that y'all might hate me for.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> just fyi, only kind of following canon! to be honest, i only watched teen wolf up until **spoiler alert** allison dies so we're just going to pretend that didn't happen and instead have a bunch of random stuff i'm throwing in there instead 
> 
> also hope y'all are ready for the angst from the start you've been warned

Perhaps Stiles should have been expecting this, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

The Hale Pack has quite a few enemies, and while they have managed to stay under the radar of the mundane world for some time now, it’s no coincidence that since their pack has grown, other alphas have grown wary of them. It’s his job to know these things—he’s considered the Claw of the pack, the investigator, the one to stay in the shadows and strike only when necessary. Claws are easily hidden, even when withdrawn—and that’s the role that Stiles occupies for the pack, half-investigator, half-mob fixer, willing to look around corners and head off any danger that may be coming.

He does it a little differently, of course, than Claws before him. He’s still human, after all, and killing someone may take a little more effort and planning on his part. He can’t track people by scent, nor can he run them down like prey. This had all been by choice—in the ten years that he had Derek had been together, ever since he came home after graduating from Stanford, Laura has offered to make him a beta, but with his spine of steel and his penchant for running his mouth, he knows that he would make a terrible beta.

In that moment, however, he wished desperately that he could make claws extend from his fingertips so he could tear apart whoever left his father bleeding in the street.

John looked up at Stiles with glassy eyes as Stiles knelt next to the body. He didn’t call the police yet—he wasn’t ready to face that—and instead just studied him as if he was just pursuing another case. He’s no longer John’s son, but instead a private investigator, the job he’s been remarkably good at since returning to Beacon Hills, and he’s going to solve this case. That’s the only way he can stay here and not scream, the only way he can deal with what’s going on, because if he allowed any of this emotion in, he’s sure he’d never be able to get back up.

Stiles took off his backpack, putting it down next to him and rummaging through its contents—even if he has matured some since he was a teenager, he’s certainly not any more organized, and his backpack is a disaster zone—until he can find the box of surgical gloves to snap over his hands while he carefully checks for evidence. He swabbed under his father’s fingernails, across the back of his knuckles, through the deep, jagged tears in his tissue. He did this methodically, carefully avoiding the frozen gaze of his father’s dead eyes, and when he was done, he wasn’t surprised to feel someone’s gaze on him.

“Derek, don’t.” Stiles knew that if Derek touched him, if Derek even _said_ anything, he would fall apart, and he couldn’t do that yet. He’s still got to call this in, he’s still got to keep his composure for the cops, and he’s got to hunt down the bastards who did this and make them hurt in all the worst ways. He may have still been human, yes, but he was hardened by years of doing the dirty work of the pack. He knew how to make people suffer, and while he rarely did it, this was one occasion where he wouldn’t mind shooting someone with a wolfsbane bullet and watching them bleed out. Until that was done, he couldn’t fall apart.

This was something that Derek had to grow accustomed to with his mate—while ‘wolves were pack animals and craved physical affection and comfort in times like these, Stiles needed time to come to Derek on his own. It made Derek ache, a sympathetic pain and grief gripping at his chest on top of the existing sorrow at seeing John’s body lying in the alleyway, and all he wanted was to draw Stiles close to him. He wanted to rub his cheek against Stiles’ hair, scent-marking him to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone, he wanted to crush him in a hug and carry him home. The wolf in him was clawing at the surface, desperate to coddle and groom and care for his grief-stricken mate, but Derek didn’t do anything but stand there. Even the few feet of distance between them was agony.

Stiles pulled out his phone and dialed the number he knew by heart, the one for the Sheriff’s department, and felt sick to his stomach when his phone automatically labels the contact DAD OFFICE. He wanted to scream but he didn’t, keeping his rage and misery tightly buttoned down below the surface. In his five years of occupying his role in the pack, after Peter retired, it was the biggest lesson he had learned. He hid his feelings behind his sarcasm, played everything close to the vest, because if there’s one thing any self-respecting Claw knows how to do, it’s keep their composure.

“Yes, hi, Stan, it’s Stiles. I’m uh—listen, I’m going to just cut to the chase.” His voice wavered slightly as he spoke. “I’m in the alleyway next to the coffee shop at Main and Third, and my dad—” He swallowed once. “My dad is dead.”

///

By the time they got in the car to return to the Hale house, Stiles could feel his composure slipping. He tried to remember what Peter said about holding onto that emotion, holding onto that rage and not allowing it to consume him and cloud his judgment, but it’s just not possible. Sitting there in the passenger seat of the Camaro, Stiles wanted nothing more than to scream and cry and beat his chest as he wailed. He wanted to fall apart and grieve for the loss that he never thought he’d have to face—at least, not for a long time.

Derek could feel the rage and despair coming off Stiles in waves, smell it thick and heavy in the air around them, and his knuckles went white against the steering wheel. Neither of them were talking, but that wasn’t a bad thing—through their mate bond, they had become more finely tuned to each other’s moods, more able to read the nonverbals for what they really meant. While Stiles was still human, his senses were heightened when it came to Derek, and Derek’s existing supernatural ability was strengthened to the point of near ridiculousness when it came to Stiles.

“Pull over,” Stiles said suddenly, and Derek knew exactly what he was going to do. He immediately turned the Camaro to the side of the road, watching Stiles carefully as he got up and walked towards the thick forest that hugged the curve of the narrow road that led into the preserve. He waited for a moment before he got up too, feeling the roiling boil of emotions just under the surface as he shut the door behind him. He wasn’t surprised when he heard the gut-wrenching scream tear from Stiles’ lips, but he couldn’t help but flinch at the pain that seared through their bond and burned in his chest.

“God _dammit_ ,” Stiles yelled into the forest, causing a number of birds to take flight from the surrounding trees. “God-fucking-dammit!” He kicked a nearby tree, hard enough to break his toes if he hadn’t been wearing practical, steel-toed boots, and he doubled over just to let out a scream to rival the Hale pack’s howls on a full moon night. Before he knew what was happening, Derek had his arms wrapped around Stiles as Stiles felt his knees give way below him, holding him up as Stiles sagged against Derek’s chest. He sobbed openly, curling his hand into a fist and beating Derek’s chest because he just needed to _hit_ something, and Derek felt solid and warm against him and he _hated_ that this was making him feel even marginally better. He didn’t want to feel better.

Derek didn’t say anything about the pounding of Stiles’ fist, instead just bringing a hand up to clasp that fist against his chest as he sank to his knees, dragging Stiles in closer and nosing through his hair, rubbing his cheek against his temple, and cursing whatever higher power was out there for not making it possible for Derek to take this pain away.

“ _Derek_ ,” Stiles choked out, and Derek just pulled him closer, as if he could squeeze the sorrow from his shoulders, as if he could just warm the grief from his chest. Derek kept pressing his face into Stiles’ hair, not caring that the smell of sadness made him feel sick, that the fact that it was coming from _Stiles_ only made him feel more sick, and instead just crushing Stiles to his chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry,” he whispered over and over, because that was all he could think to say. Because that’s all there _was_ to say. He almost felt a growl rise in his chest, the threat of what _exactly_ he’s willing to do to make sure they get revenge, but the threat died before it reached his lips. Revenge won’t bring Stiles’ father back, and he knew that Stiles could feel that anger radiating off Derek’s body, which is enough of a threat in itself.

Instead, Derek just let Stiles clutch at his clothes, desperate for purchase, and sob into his chest because there were no fucking words to make this right.

When they reach the house, set deep into the forest, Stiles was completely silent. His head ached from all the crying, and when he checked the mirror in the visor in front of him, he saw that his eyes were bloodshot until they were practically glowing crimson. He snapped the mirror shut in disgust, forcefully shoving it into the roof of the Camaro, though that urge to fight soon left his body, and he pressed his forehead against the window. He didn’t want to get up, didn’t want to go inside, where he was sure everyone would be able to feel the grief rolling off him. What Stiles wanted in that moment was to go up to the room he shared with Derek, get under the covers, and stay there until he withered away into nothing. His stomach hurt. Hell, his entire body hurt, a soreness settling deep into his bones that he wasn’t sure would ever go away.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even realize that Derek had even gotten out of the car and walked over to the passenger side until he was easing the door open, lest Stiles lose his balance and fall out. His clumsiness had never quite gone away, even if his gangly teenage frame had filled in with muscle after years of training with werewolves. Derek got down into a crouch, speaking softly to Stiles.

“You don’t need to talk to anyone else if you don’t want to. I’ll tell them what happened. But, please—” Derek’s voice cracked lightly on that word, and he cleared his throat. “Please let me take care of you.” Not only because his desperate to do everything he can to coddle and comfort his mate—his wolf was practically begging him to do it at this point—but because it was what _he_ needed, too. Werewolves relied on physicality to share their feelings, to quell their anxieties and slow their racing hearts. Derek was fairly certain that if Stiles wouldn’t let him hold him and comfort him through this, the grief would break Derek, too.

Of course, he could go to someone else in the pack for that comfort, but it wouldn’t be the same. It was Stiles his wolf whined for.

Stiles looked at him as if he might strike Derek for a moment, but the as quickly as the fire entered his gaze, it left, and he just nodded. He didn’t need more invitation than that, and he easily slipped his arms under Stiles’ legs and arms, lifting him into a bridal-style carry and nudging the door to the Camaro shut with his foot.

“’m not some damsel,” Stiles mumbled, but didn’t do anything to fight Derek’s firm grip, instead bringing his arms up to loop around Derek’s neck as he nuzzled in closer to Derek’s chest.

Upon hearing the two heartbeats approaching the house, Laura immediately opened the door, her eyes flashing a blood red as she looked at them. The pack bond had extended to Stiles’ father, too—no one had to say anything to know what happened. She reached her arms out towards them, fully ready to envelop both of them in a hug, to mark Stiles with her scent to drown out the overwhelming stench of _death_ that clung to his clothes and skin, but Derek just shook his head.

As if she had been slapped, Laura dropped her arms, swallowing thickly as she wrapped her arms around herself instead. Isaac, who had been watching quietly from the doorway, stepped forward to nuzzle Laura’s neck instead, trying to rid her of the smell of despair that radiated from her, but it didn’t work. Isaac’s skin was soaked through with it, too.

Derek passed the other members of the pack—Scott, who looked ready to tear out someone’s throat, and Allison, who clung to his shoulder in the doorway to the living room; Cora and her mate, Natalie, who stood in the threshold through their bedroom, also clinging to each other; Boyd and Erica, watching carefully from the end of the hallway, looking like they might be sick; and Peter, who sat at the desk near the door to his room, his hands steepled under his chin and his brows furrowed, the expression he always had when he was figuring out the best way to cause a slow and arduous death for whoever had harmed his pack in this way.

He ignored all of them and went to their room, kicking the door shut behind them. He considered asking Stiles if he wanted a shower, but the somewhat panicked look in Stiles’ eyes shut that possibility down immediately. Stiles got along with the pack well, and most of the time didn’t mind the physical closeness they all so desperately craved, but now it would just be too much. Derek didn’t want to take him back out there, where he would be mobbed.

The house was deathly silent, and Derek hated it. Usually, the sound of Isaac cooking something late at night—as the Heart of the pack, he spent a lot of his time in the kitchen, making their house into a den, into a _home_ —or Laura typing away at her computer as she worked on an article or Cora and Natalie giggling to each other in their room would calm the frantic pace of Derek’s heart. None of that was present that night. He doubted it would be for a while.

He set Stiles down on their bed, crouching down in front of him to carefully untie his boots and cast them aside. Then, he got to work on Stiles’ shirt, nuzzling against his neck in the most comforting way he could as he undid the row of buttons down his front. He carefully slid it off, feeling something twist in his chest at how pliant Stiles was, at how he just _let_ Derek move him however he pleased. Derek wanted to scream. He wanted turn back time, just a few hours, and get his jovial, sarcastic, sharp-tongued mate back. But there was no turning back now.

Derek folded Stiles’ clothes and set them aside before stripping down to his underwear himself, crawling into bed next to Stiles and drawing him close. Derek pressed himself against Stiles as tightly as he could, and Stiles turned to bury his face in Derek’s chest. Derek had to stop himself from letting out a sigh of relief—at least Stiles was letting him _in_. Derek let his hands run comfortingly over Stiles’ back, rubbing away the scent of sorrow and letting his own smell replace it, his lips pressing gentle kisses into Stiles’ hair before he rubbed his cheek against the spot, wishing he could do something more. He always wished he could do something _more_.

That night, Stiles dreamt his father was still alive, and when he woke up at 3 am with an awful headache and crushing reality, he cried, and Derek rocked him in his arms until Stiles cried himself to sleep.

///

Late that night, most of the pack was unable to stay still, and, as was the usual, they drifted into the kitchen. It was the heart of their den, the place where they spent most of their time, playing board games at the kitchen table or trying Isaac’s new recipes. The kitchen in this house had been used for mourning before, of course, after the fire had wiped out a quarter of the pack, but that was 20 years ago at that point. It had not been this permeated with the stench of death and sorrow for a long time.

Scott still looked like he might tear someone’s throat out, his eyes glowing gold as he sat at the table with his fists clenched. Allison knew that it would be useless to try and talk him down from this state, so she didn’t try, instead resting her cheek against his shoulder and squeezing gently at the back of his neck. The next day, when this hit him, they’d spend most of the day holding each other in bed, but the wolf in Scott was thirsting for blood, and the waxing moon above them made it impossible for Scott to suppress the urge. Scott huffed tense breaths through his nose, and Allison whispered almost inaudibly into his ear to _breathe, baby, just breathe_ , because that’s the only advice she can give, and it felt fucking useless. Scott suddenly stood from his spot, already peeling off his shirt. “I need to go for a run,” he said, though the last part of his sentence was cut off as he shifted, moving towards the door quickly and bolting into the night in his full wolf form before anyone—namely, Allison—could object.

Erica reached out for Allison’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze as she leaned back against Boyd. He had his arm wrapped possessively around Erica’s shoulders, as if he was afraid that she might be next. His eyes were gold as well, and he and Scott couldn’t look at each other, lest their wolves redirect their rage towards each other in a desperate urge to just get it out there, rather than focusing on the real target. He was secretly relieved when Scott left. One volatile wolf at the table was more than enough. Allison looked down, sniffling lightly, and that was the only cue Boyd and Erica needed to pull her closer, Erica wrapping her arm around Allison’s shoulders and Boyd reaching his unoccupied hand out to hold onto hers.

Isaac was bustling around the kitchen, sometimes murmuring something to Laura as she peeked over his shoulder as he washed dishes that were already clean or checked on the cookies in the oven for the thousandth time, because all he could do with his idle hands was bake when he was stressed. When his nervous energy became too much for her to bear, she took his hands in hers and forced him to look at her. “Isaac…” she started softly, but there were no words to fix this, so she didn’t say any. He didn’t need her to. He just nodded and looked down, and Laura brought one of her hands out from where they had been interlaced to hold onto his jaw gently, pressing him back against the counter as he wrapped his unoccupied arm around her waist. He dropped his head to her shoulder, taking his hand out from hers and pulling it up to rest between her shoulder blades, and she brought both arms up to wrap around his neck fully, her fingers carding through the short hairs at the nape of his neck.

Cora was sitting cross-legged in her usual chair at the table, staring at the seat next to her, where John would always sit when he came for dinner, and Natalie wordlessly brought her hand up to gently tilt her chin away from it. Cora was always more soft-hearted than she had ever let on, and Natalie knew that. It was what had drawn them together. Instead, she pulled Cora close, pulling her face away from that seat and settling Cora’s head against her shoulder, the two of them absolutely silent. Cora had faced enough hurt for a lifetime, and Natalie’s wolf growled lowly somewhere deep in her chest. Natalie, a bit more prone to violence than the rest of the pack generally was, wanted nothing more than to tear whoever did this limb from limb.

Peter was the only one missing, still sitting at his desk in his room, ever thoughtful. It had been years since he had been the Claw of the pack, but the instinct never went away, and Peter had taken a liking to both Stiles and his father when Stiles had first joined the pack. It was why Peter had chosen Stiles as his successor, even though the position had always gone to a ‘wolf, because Stiles was just that good. Anyone who could keep up with Peter was worthy of the position, and Stiles did it with ease.

Something that Peter hadn’t stoked for a long time started to stir in his chest, and after thinking for a moment longer, he pulled out his worn, leather-bound notebook, and started to make a list of people to hunt down and question. He would be getting to the bottom of this, and whoever had harmed his pack would be paying for it with their lives. He daydreamed about the most horrific ways to torture them, kill them, and bury them somewhere in the preserve—and if they were lucky, it would happen in that order.

The next morning—though, technically, it was a little past noon—the first person to have the courage to enter their room was Isaac. Half-expecting that one of them would throw something at him, instead, he was just met with Derek’s low, instinctual growl at the sound of the knock at the door. “It’s just me, Derek,” he called out quietly, and he took the silence that met him as an indication to let himself in, crouching down in front of the bed to look at Stiles. He ran a hand over Stiles’ hair, gently marking him with his scent before he spoke. “You have to eat at some point,” he said quietly. “Please let me bring you something.” Stiles didn’t say anything, just turned over, away from Isaac. He paused for a moment before leaning forward and gently rubbing his cheek against Stiles’ shoulder. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

The gesture, so simple but so meaningful, made Stiles want to cry. Isaac always knew what to say.

One by one, members of the pack drifted near the doorway, only some of them coming in to say something. Scott crawled into bed with them for a good two hours, even though the bed really was _not_ large enough for the three of them, he still couldn’t bear to be apart from Stiles. He only reluctantly let go when Allison reminded him that they’d have to get their son from school soon, and Scott and Allison agreed that they would be breaking the news to Tyler that afternoon. Cora brought in a vase of wildflowers, hoping to mask some of the scent of heartache and help with what she was sure was the worst migraine Derek had ever had from inhaling so much of it. Erica just sat on the floor next to their bed for a while, her fingertips tracing gentle shapes against the back of Stiles’ hand.

Stiles didn’t perk up for any of this, another worrying sign for Derek, but he knew that it would take time. He was praying that it just wouldn’t take six years, like it had for him.

Sometime in the evening, once Isaac had coaxed Stiles into sitting up and eating at least a few spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup, Peter swept into the room in the way he tended to do. He sat on the edge of their bed. Despite the fact that Derek was fixing him with a glare that could wither plants on sight—he had never quite approved of Peter’s methods—he looked only at Stiles, using two fingers to tilt Stiles’ head towards him.

“I’m going to kill them,” he said, matter-of-factly.

“No,” Stiles replied, the first thing he’d said all day. Derek almost looked shocked, but the bond Stiles had with his uncle was no secret. “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i thought i would just clarify some pack ages here (consider this the living hale family tree). mates are separated by ||, children indicated with ()
> 
> peter hale - 56  
> laura hale - 38 || isaac lahey - 34 (mira lahey-hale, 8; jason lahey-hale, 6; andrea lahey-hale, 3)  
> derek hale - 36 || stiles stilinski - 32  
> vernon boyd - 34 || erica reyes - 32 (michael reyes-boyd, 5; axel reyes-boyd, 2)  
> scott mccall - 32 || allison argent - 32 (tyler argent-mccall, 4)  
> cora hale - 27 || natalie garcia - 27
> 
> they are all wolves, except stiles, allison, jason, axel and tyler
> 
> more to come in the next few weeks!


	2. we might be dead by tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the days leading up to the sheriff's death, there were signs. stiles feels like he should have seen them.

In the days leading up to his father’s death, Stiles had been working on an especially grueling case. In the years since returning to Beacon Hills, he had set up a decent private investigation firm, made up of him and the high schooler he’d brought on part time to take care of some of the organization and paperwork around the place. There were certain things he couldn’t tell the kid, however, for the sign above the door read STILINSKI PRIVATE INVESTIGATION (with STILES STILINSKI-HALE, P.I. embossed in smaller letters below it) and the _private_ part of _private_ investigation had become crucial in his work. Stiles had become known among the supernatural community as the go-to when they couldn’t take their problems to the police. It was rewarding work—and it kept his skills ever-sharp for the next time the pack needed him to take care of something. 

More often than not, Stiles would find himself alone in the office working on these supernatural cases, lest high-school-Mark catch wind of the work Stiles was actually doing. It was late one night (two nights before his father died, in fact) when he was poring over the latest supernatural case he had received. Three women, all with young children, abducted. While these women were not shifters, they were all married to shifters—and it was not unlikely that their children could be shifters as well. It only got more curious, as the children all showed up, days later, completely feral and in full shift, their mothers nowhere to be found. 

This was a case that hit Stiles particularly hard. He always felt a twist in his chest with each case he read; he could understand a motherless child’s urge to bare their teeth at anyone who tried to come close. 

He was flipping through the medical records of one of the children, taking notes in the margins on some of the strange substances found in their bloodstream—chemicals he didn’t recognize but would soon figure out—when his he heard the light beep of an alarm next to him and his head snapped up. When he was there late at night, he had run into more than one unsavory character, and he had set up a proximity detector after coming home with a split lip a few too many times. He reached a hand under his desk to quickly disable it and stood up from his chair to quietly approach the door, picking up his baseball bat from where it was tucked by the window. 

Deaton had been kind enough to enchant it, imbuing Stiles’ weapon of choice with an unnatural sturdiness, making it almost impossible to break, even with wolf strength. Wolfsbane was soaked into the grain of the maple, and, in worst case scenarios, the handle hid a knife with a silver edge. Stiles didn’t want to think about the last time he had needed to use it. He considered turning off the light but, frankly, that would most likely only put Stiles at a disadvantage if there was a supernatural intruder. Instead, he just peered at the frosted glass, and upon seeing an approaching figure, he immediately pressed himself flat against the wall next to the door, waiting for the worst to happen, his hands clenched around the handle of the bat. 

He heard the door handle turn and stepped out in front of it, ready to swing as the door opened, but he just heard a strangled noise of surprise and saw his father’s hands come up in front of his face to shield himself. “Jesus, son, what are you doing?” he exclaimed, to which Stiles sheepishly dropped his bat to the side.

“Sorry, Dad,” he said, though a smirk started to lift at his lip. “Though, you can’t really say it was my fault. You’re supposed to call first.”

“What, a dad can’t come and see his son? I went by the Hale house—they said you were here, so here I am.” The sheriff’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. 

Stiles leaned lightly against his bat, a quizzical expression on his features. “And, what, you just wanted a little chat at—“ He glanced down at his watch. “Jesus fuck, it’s 10:30 already?”

“Language,” John admonished. 

“If you haven’t succeeded in stopping me swearing by the age of 32, I don’t think you’ll ever be able to get me to stop.”

John winded at that. “Way to make me feel old, kid.”

“It’s my job,” Stiles replied cheerfully. “Seriously, Dad, what couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” 

“This,” John said grimly. He reached into his jacket and withdrew a photo. The subject of the photo was blurry, nothing more than a shape in the darkness, but it was unmistakably a wolf. Its rust-colored coat, a sheen different from any member of the pack, immediately piqued Stiles’ interest. “It was taken two days ago, at the edge of the preserve,” the sheriff explained. “This has to be the fourth or fifth sighting of the wolf, and the only time we’ve been able to get a picture. He’s fast. Do you know who it is?”

Stiles’ brow furrowed, a million questions racing through his head. “No,” he replied. He kept his questions to himself for the time being, knowing that the less he involved his father, the safer it would be. “Can you find out the exact part of the preserve? I’ll get Derek and do a sweep.”

“Already sent to your email,” John replied, with a tone as if to say _did you think I’d forget?_

Stiles couldn’t help the smile that curved at the corner of his lips. “Can I hang onto this?”

“Yeah, sure. Be careful with it, though. It’s the only copy we’ve got.” Stiles paused, his brow furrowing. 

“What do you mean?”

“Digital files keep getting corrupted.” He dropped his hands to rest on his belt. “Someone found an old film camera in storage and took that photo before turning it in to animal control. Listen, kid, I’ve been on shift for almost 12 hours. I gotta get going.”

“Yeah, okay, old man,” Stiles teased lightly, though it was clear he wasn’t quite paying attention anymore, his teeth sunken lightly into his lower lip as he continued to study the picture. 

John couldn’t help but feel a twist in his chest—that was the same expression Claudia had always made when she was deep in thought, too, the same worried curve to Stiles’ lips. It had been a long time since he had actively grieved Stiles’ mother, with Melissa waiting for him at home, but it was the little things like a specific expression, a specific scent, that took him back to those happy early days. He reached a hand out to squeeze Stiles’ shoulder, snapping himself out of his small trance.” “Don’t work too late.” 

Stiles scoffed. “You’re one to talk,” he replied, a gentle teasing lilt to his voice. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You know you’re supposed to do as I say, not as I do.”

Stiles scoffed lightly. “We still on for dinner tomorrow?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Stiles looked up to smile at his father’s retreating figure for a moment before looking back at the picture. 

“Digital files getting corrupted, huh?” He put the picture down on the desk, taking out his phone to take a picture of it, just a little experiment for his own verification. When he tried to open the picture up, his phone crashed, the screen flickering for just a moment before there was the sound of a quick power-down. His frown grew a little more pronounced, though he supposed that he should have expected that. Besides, it certainly wasn’t the weirdest thing he’d ever seen. 

Checking his watch again, he sighed. He really should head home before Derek started tearing through the office building to drag Stiles out of his office, so he simply tucked the photo into his pocket for safekeeping and pulled his jacket over his shoulders. The mystery would still be there tomorrow, he told himself, and he’d be able to give it his full attention after a good night’s sleep. 

When he got back to the preserve, it was still alive with the bustle of pack members dispersing to their various homes. There were three total homes on the property, with the main house in the center and the other two spreading out from there. To the northeast was the house that Scott and Allison shared—everyone knew they would end up with the most kids, and they certainly needed the room, though those spare rooms were often occupied by Stiles and Derek on nights that they agreed to watch Tyler. To the northwest, there was the home that Boyd and Erica shared, with Cora and Natalie spending plenty of their nights there, even though they lived in the main house. Laura, Isaac and their children lived in the main house, along with Peter, Stiles and Derek, though there was always room there for the rest of the pack. 

This decentralized living situation was mainly a precaution; the fire had made the Hales wary. At the time, it simply made sense for all of them to live in the same house, they were so tightly knit. That had proven disastrous for them. 

Stiles simply waved at the others as he made his way up to the main house to see Derek sitting on the front porch with a mug of tea in his hands. “I told you not to wait up for me,” Stiles admonished fondly. 

Derek arched an eyebrow at him. “Since when have I taken any orders from you?” he asked. 

Stiles made his way over to sit in Derek’s lap, Derek’s arm easily winding around Stiles’ waist. Stiles leaned forward so he could kiss the shell of Derek’s ear. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I can think of a few times,” he teased lightly. 

Derek let out a pleasant rumble in his chest. “Mira’s still awake,” he said. “Laura and Isaac have been trying to get her to go to bed for hours.”

Stiles groaned in annoyance.

“Welcome to the Hale pack,” Derek said, an amused smirk curving up at the corner of his lips. “There’s absolutely no privacy here.” He brought his hand up to rub the space between Stiles’ shoulder blades. “Tough case?” he asked. 

Stiles pursed his lips. “Not sure yet. You ever heard of something that won’t let you save digital images of it?” he asked. He took his phone out of the pocket of his jacket, thinking it was most likely dead for good. He specifically didn’t mention _werewolf,_ considering he had called Deaton to look into any enchantments or spells that could have protected a normal wolf from being in any digital images. Stiles would explain everything soon enough, but Derek was someone whose opinion he valued enough to ask for it blindly, to seek out perspectives he hadn’t thought of before. “Fried my phone earlier.”

Derek picked up the phone and examined it with a light curiosity. “ _Hmm_.”

“ _Hmm_ what?” Stiles pushed. 

Derek didn’t say anything, putting the phone back down and narrowing his eyes. “ _Hmm_ as in I’ve never seen it before. We could ask Laura tomorrow—the Subbaraj pack has a pretty big bestiary, she might be able to convince them to loan it to us for a while.”

Stiles hummed. His money was on a werewolf with an enchantment, but he supposed it wouldn’t be a bad idea to explore this avenue if the information was readily available. Already, he was categorizing facts and connections into _green, yellow,_ and _red_ in his head, plotting it out on the large, rolling corkboard in the study he shared with Peter.

Originally, that study had been something of a classroom, when Peter had been training Stiles to take over Peter’s position in the pack. Peter certainly had plenty more years where he could have continue in the position, but he had grown tired of cleaning up messes. He grew tired of giving pieces of himself when he felt dangerously low on pieces to give. These weren’t things he shared with Stiles necessarily, but Stiles could see it in the way that Peter had grown slower to act, more thoughtful. He was always around for advice, but the dirty work was something from his past.

The Claw of any pack is the person who looks around corners, who heads off danger before it affects the pack and has no real need for inter-pack dynamics. They are no diplomat, they are a fixer, named after the part of any _were_ that can be taken out surreptitiously, the part that are often most deadly.

But now, Peter was Stiles’ closest confidant when it came to his work. Derek, of course, was in on the secrets when possible, but Derek and Stiles had come to something of an agreement about the work that Stiles was doing with Peter. Peter was notoriously good at keeping secrets, and when Stiles understood that the secrets he was keeping, once the most infuriating thing about Peter, were meant for the good of the pack, that was something that he had to explain to Derek. He felt a little bit guilty for using their relationship to that end, to playing on the trust between them to ask Derek to be okay for some untrustworthy things, but he desperately needed Derek to understand that the necessity of that privacy.

That study Stiles shared with Peter was often kept shut, whether or not the two of them were in it, and that was a clear marker for privacy in the Hale house (where boundaries between _private within the pack_ and _truly private_ were a bit more blurred than humans with their own families). It was just something to be accepted about the position, something that would absolutely be infuriating for the kids when they were teenagers, just like it had been for Stiles and Derek. It was just the way things were in packs. If it was a good pack, in Stiles’ opinion, they let the kids come to the understanding on their own, like Stiles and Derek did. And if those kids were sharp enough to figure out the mystery, then there wasn’t anything that Stiles could do about it.

He realized that he was taking a _lot_ of parenting tips from his father.

Stiles wrapped his arms loosely around Derek’s neck, his fingers knotting together gently behind Derek’s shoulders. “You know, my dad was asking about grandkids the other day,” he said, not exactly _lying_ so Derek wouldn’t be able to hear the change in his heartbeat, but talking lightly _around_ the point. The grandkids that John was asking about were the new Argents who had come to Beacon Hills but Stiles wanted to gauge Derek’s reaction.

“Was he really?” Derek asked, not with a tone of disbelief but a light twitch of his eyebrow in surprise.

“Yeah, I mean, like, he’s getting up in years, you know, and he wants to have some grandkids before then. Like, he has Tyler, but Tyler is Scott’s kid and Scott’s his stepson, so—” Even now that Stiles had grown out his teenage awkwardness, he hadn’t quite gotten a hold of that rambling mouth of his. Thankfully, Derek usually knew when to just ask Stiles the question he’d been to anxious to say coherently.

“Stiles,” Derek asked. “Do you want to have kids?”

Stiles closed his mouth, willing himself not to ramble his way through it. For a long time, they hadn’t been ready to even think about children—even if they had been _mated_ since Stiles was 22 and Derek was 26, they were the type to be constantly butting heads, to have broken up and gotten together a million different times with the knowledge that regardless of what happened, they would be coming back to each other at some point or another. However angry they got, however much they fought, they’d be back.

The first time Stiles had brought up children, they’d had a huge, blowout argument, and for a long time, Stiles hadn’t known what it was. Stiles, who was prone to running when things got bad, had ended up spending a night driving around in his Jeep—at that time, on its last legs to the point where it now spent its days in the garage, for even if Stiles couldn’t drive it anymore, he couldn’t bear to part with it. As always, he had come back in the morning, even if he hadn’t promised that he would be. Frankly, he hadn’t been sure, but about two hours after he left, he started feeling that need to return to the place that had been his home for the past 3 and a half years. Derek, who had been waiting up for him, and heard the Jeep pulling into the driveway, stepped out onto the porch just as Stiles got out of the car.

Neither of them said anything as Stiles came up to the door, but as he approached the last few steps to close the space between them, Derek had softly said: “ _This_ is why it’s a bad idea for us to have kids,” he said simply before turning and going back inside. Stiles had to admit, he was right—it wouldn’t be fair if one of them always stormed off before resolution, both of them prone to brooding on their own, leaving a kid in the lurch. He hated that Derek had been right.

But now, things were different. Stiles and Derek came home every night and sometimes they fought and most of the time they didn’t. It had grown easier, more mature, and Stiles, seemed to be admitting to Derek that he had been right six years ago.

“I mean—I think we’re in a good place,” Stiles said, before anxiously adding: “A-Aren’t we? We could do this.”

Derek rubbed a hand in slow circles across Stiles’ back. “Yeah. I think we are,” he said softly before leaning in to press a kiss against Stiles’ lips.

Stiles opened his mouth to respond to the gentle pressure, and suddenly, Derek forgot about the potentially waking eight year old inside or Laura or Isaac, who could walk out at any moment. Instead, he dropped a hand to grip at Stiles’ thigh and drag him marginally closer. Stiles took the direction easily, shifting his hips up into Derek’s grip so that Derek could turn him in his lap with superhuman speed, dropping Stiles’ legs so Stiles was lightly straddling his hips. Derek splayed out both hands across Stiles’ back, Stiles smoothly wrapping his arms more tightly around Derek’s neck. He kissed Derek deeply, lazily, his tongue carefully exploring the ridges and valleys of Derek’s mouth before he pulled away slightly. Derek tilted his head so that he could mouth at Stiles’ neck, and Stiles felt a light laugh huff out from behind his teeth.

“So, we’re going to do this?” Stiles asked.

Derek let out a soft noise. “Kids?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

Stiles grinned and dropped his hands to Derek’s belt.

///

At the edges of the preserve, the rust-colored wolf saw the world in shades of red. His eyes glowed with a deep cherry color, dark enough that the red started to look black. Each Alpha had their own shade of red, much like a fingerprint, passed down through generations of Alpha from varying lineages. Usually, these reds were bright, mixed with a ton of yellow and white so they could be seen easily at night by both werewolves and humans. A dark red was rare, and carried plenty of bad superstition.

The wolf, however, didn’t seem to be doing anything that was particularly threatening to the pack’s territory. In fact, it seemed careful not to rub up against any trees, careful not to mark too much with their scent. They knew that would be dangerous in Hale territory, not because the Hales were necessarily territorial, but because it would be much easier for them if the largest pack from the southwestern border of Canada down to Los Angeles knew exactly where they were and what they were doing. This would require some finesse.

Somewhere deep in the woods, the mewling howl of a child echoed through the trees. The wolf almost ran after it, but they forced their body to remain in place, fighting against every single one of their instincts. They knew that they would have to follow the sound, but they wouldn’t be able to do that without backup. So, they buried their snout in some leaves as they settled down, flattening their ears completely against their head and tensing every muscle in their body to keep from standing up and following the noise.

Soon enough, the investigator would figure it out. He would know what to do. But, they couldn’t risk him approaching the cub while the wolf was nearby. They had heard good things about Stilinski, about the Hale pack. The names carried weight, having become infamous for the ways they handled problems, and they just prayed that the pack would be able to figure out what was happening, and quickly..

If they couldn’t, Beacon Hills had a storm coming.

///

Derek sat up in bed, the hairs on the arms and the back of his neck bristling. He could have sworn he heard something, but as soon as he had heard it, it was gone, just loud enough to wake him up, but short enough that the sound was gone by the time he heard it. He could have sworn it was a howl, but a quick count of the heart rates in the house affirmed that each of the pack. _Whose cub could it be_?

Anything that could have roused Derek from his comfortable position in Stiles’ arms was certainly enough to cause Stiles alarm, so he sat up as well, the light of the waxing moon casting his high cheekbones and ridged nose into sharp relief. He raised a hand to rub the back of Derek’s neck gently, and Derek’s brow furrowed slightly in frustration. “I know that expression,” Stiles said, a slight smirk pulling at his features, though he kept it subtle for the potential gravity of the situation.

“I heard something howling,” Derek said, his voice carrying more surprise than anything else. It was now Stiles’ turn to furrow his brow.

“Like what was in the picture?” he asked.

Derek shook his head. “Like…” He paused, thinking back a few moments, and he was certain of it. The thin, mewling sound, the tinny voice that carried in the air even though it kept dissipating. “It sounded like a cub.”

Stiles frowned for a moment before reaching over to the bedside table and writing on a sticky note WHERE’S THE CUB? in big letters. He knew better than to doubt Derek’s instincts.

“Do you still hear it?”

Derek furrowed his brow some more. “It was so short. And quiet” He pursed his lips.

Stiles brought his hand back up to rub at Derek’s shoulders. “If you don’t hear it, it’s better not to go out into the preserve at night. Not with whatever’s out there, you know, lurking around.” He narrowed his eyes slightly as he glanced at the window. “Not until we know what it is, at least.”

Derek begrudgingly lay back down, and, as usual, Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek and slung a leg over his hips, Stiles’ chest pressed against Derek’s back warmly. Derek interlaced their fingers, holding their hands against his chest. Stiles pressed a line of sleepy kisses across Derek’s bare shoulder, but Derek’s mind was still on the sound of that cub.

Stiles was right, of course. Besides, Derek wasn’t even sure if the sound was real. Perhaps that was the worst part.

Deep in the woods, the cub keened again, but the wind carried the sound far, far away from Derek’s sensitive ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i couldn't resist, next installment is here much more quickly than i had anticipated. let me know what y'all think!


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